Back In Time
by BobWhite
Summary: Tierney Wheeler lives on the Bad Lands National Park with her father. She is knocked off of her horse and hits her head. While unconscious, she travels back in time to Colorado Springs. How do the residents of Colrado Springs react to seeing her? R&R pls.
1. Tierney Wheeler

**Full Summary:**

Tierney Wheeler was riding her horse home from the library with her books, laptop, movies, CD's and IPod in her backpack. In the duffel bag she had her sweats, t-shirts, jeans, skirts, dresses, tank tops, boots, sandals, bras/underwear, toothbrush, bathroom necessities, batteries, headphones and CD/MP3 player, cans of fruits and vegetables, some candy, some bottles of water and pop and my pepper spray and mace. What happens when she's thrust back in time with all her modern gear?

**Tierney Wheeler:**

Hi, my name is Tierney Wheeler and I am from the future. I was riding Lobo home from the library when a 'freak' storm blew in. I looked for cover but noticed that the storm was only over my position. My father, a Park Ranger in the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, was always taking me out in the Park and teaching me how to track animals and how to take care of myself if I ever got lost or anything during all the seasons. My mother was never really in the picture and it was always me who made dinner for the two of us. Lobo, my Clydesdale, was the horse I used to Show in the local rodeo's and rode on the Badlands, making sure nobody was there that wasn't supposed to be there.

I was sixteen and I already had a job working with my father. Most kids my age would die for a job like this, getting to spend your afternoons every weekday on the back of a horse, riding the Badlands, looking for something that wasn't supposed to be there. I had always heard the Native Americans that worked with my father talk about those that had once lived here and I was always looking for any trace of them. I loved looking for ancient villages and arrowheads and stuff like that. I would always bring the objects back to the main cabin and show them to my father.

My father's partner, Matoskah, would always tell me the history of the objects and then let me take them home, to the collection I had made when I was a younger child. His daughter, Nahimana, was constantly over at my house, looking over the artifacts and running through the history with me. We would learn more about the Cheyenne History* from the artifacts that I collected on the Badlands than from any book that we read in class or at the library. Nahimana and I were supposed to go riding when I got home and after I did my chores. We both got paid for working at the National Park and we liked riding our horses wherever we went.

I would never make it home. The storm scared Lobo and she reared, sending me to the ground with all of my stuff on. I always kept my backpack and duffel bag with me and on my back at all times, no matter where I was going, because I never knew when I might need it. My head hit a rock and I knew no more. What I do remember is something that couldn't have happened. I remember waking up in something that couldn't be.

Lobo was still with me, only she was standing next to me, waiting for me to wake up. My head hurt and I was sure that someone had seen what had happened because I got the feeling that I was being watched. I touched the side of my head and I felt blood. I knew that I would need to get that cleaned up as soon as possible; I just needed to find a stream to clean myself in before venturing into either an Indian village or a local town. The only problem was, would they accept me for who I was and not send me out of there town, calling me a freak in the process.

**[*Not true about where the Cheyenne population and I'm not sure that they were even in S. Dakota before the reservations. She will end up in Colorado Springs, though.]**


	2. No Longer In South Dakota

**No Longer In South Dakota:**

**First Night: Settling In:**

I knew enough to know that in order to keep wild animals away from you, you needed to make loud noise and I had plenty of lour noise. I built a fire and made a semi-circle around Lobo and me, keeping the fire burning through the night. I plugged my MP3 player into the speakers that I had had in my backpack and blasted my music. If I was going to stay in a place I knew nothing about, I was going to be well protected.

After the music was plugged in and playing and the fire was burning strong, I took out a can of fruit and opened it up. Lobo was chewing on some grass nearby. I had put the steak in the ground and tied her lead rope to the steak near me so she couldn't run off and so that nobody would steal her. Her saddle was behind my back and she soon came close enough to lie down and fall asleep next to me. My knowledge of the Badlands was what kept me alive that first night.

As soon as I felt the fire starting to get low, I would get up and add more dry wood to it to keep it from going out. The music was switching from one song to the next and nothing was coming close due to the fact that they didn't know what it was. I heard the howl of wolves close by, but because of my music, they stayed clear. I heard other animals and they also stayed clear because of the unknown sound that came from my campsite. I also heard the sound of horse hooves lurking in the distance, keeping clear even though I knew that the riders could see the fire that I had built around Lobo and me.

**The First Day: Looking For Help:**

When morning came, I put out the fire, put my speakers back in my backpack, put Lobo's saddle back on her, put my backpack & duffel bag back on my back, put my headphones into my MP3 Player and pocketed the player, then as I looked around, grabbed the reins and hoisted my self back into the saddle. The steak was in my boot, just in case I would need to use it. I was wearing a Kémeonáhevoestôtse, my jean Ka'eéstse'he that matched it, my shell Hoestáto that went with it, my shell Hóseestôtse that I bought to go with the outfit and my straw Tôhé'kêsaévôhkêha'e that I always wore with this outfit and the bear tooth Ho'ota that I had made and wore with almost every outfit that I put on.

**[AN- the **underlined** words are in the glossary and will be at the end of the story. But for now, you should know what is being said. I will translate at the end of this chapter.]**

Lobo, my Mo'éhno'ha Tsémomé'šêhahtase, was patient in what I was doing because she to did not know where we were and she was reluctant in wandering off too far. She, like I, could tell that someone was watching us, but she didn't know who it was. I took out a Má'xeme from the duffel bag as I rode and let Lobo take the lead. She picked her way through the prairie as we made our way north and hopefully somewhere where we could find shelter. I kept one earphone out of my ear just so that I could hear what was going on around me.

I took my camera out of my bag and started taking pictures. It was a good thing that I had emptied all of my pictures on the memory cards onto a disc back home before putting them in the camera case and placing my camera and batteries in there as well. I took pictures of all the landscape and natural landmarks so that I could look them up when I got back home, if I ever got back home. Every picture I took, every time I pushed the shutter button, I knew that there was a possibility that if I ever got back home, they wouldn't be there, that this could be just some weird dream.

I had the feeling that somehow this was something from the past, my heritage catching up with me even though I knew most of my history from my father, Matoskah, Nahimana, Tiva and Nashoba because I've lived among Cheyenne Indians my whole life. The language of the Cheyenne's, which I was taught at an early age, was a complex one, and other people not of the Cheyenne culture had trouble understanding what was being said.

At the thought of all the people I had left behind, I started getting home sick, wanting to go home sooner rather than later. But even I knew that wasn't going to happen until I was done here. And the only way to figure out why I was sent back in the first place was to come in contact with the first person I came across, whether it be Whiteman or Indian, it didn't matter. But from what I knew, from just looking around, it would probably be Whiteman because there were no tepee's around and normally in an Indian village there were tepee's and lots of them.

Lobo mingled through the prairie as she found her way by smell. Her sense of smell was greater than that of a human and she knew what she was looking for. Our first mission was to find a body of water, preferably a stream or river. Lobo could sense where it was and smell the water. Now all we had to do was get to it before noon. My watch told me that it was about 8:00am and by how Lobo was acting, we were getting close to the water.

We ended up at the stream at around 9:00am, and Lobo drank thirstily. I swung off her saddle, kicked my boots off and waded into the Mahpe and washed the blood from my hair and face. Once the blood was washed off, I went to the saddle and grabbed the two canteens that I always had hooked to the saddle. Unhooking the canteens, I waded back out into the Mahpe. I dipped the canteens into the Mahpe and filled them with fresh cool water. I turned around and waded out of the water, hooking the canteens back onto the saddle and making sure that they couldn't leak.

My father, family & friends would never believe this story when I got back home. Vé'ho'kôtse surrounded the stream and I picked some to make sure that I would have something dry to start my fire with for that night.

Kémeonáhevoestôtse: shell dress

Ka'eéstse'he: jacket

Hoestáto: belt

Hóseestôtse: earrings

Tôhé'kêsaévôhkêha'e: cowboy hat

Ho'ota: choker/necklace

Mo'éhno'ha: horse

Má'xeme: apple

Ma'xemeno: apples

Mahpe: water

Vé'ho'kôtse: sweetgrass

Nétónêševéhe: what's your name?

Náheševéhe: my name is…

Pévevóona'o: good morning

Tosa'e nénêxhé'óhtse: where did you come from?

Nâháa'e: auntie

Nahko'e: mother

Ného'e: father

Néške'e: grandmother

Náéšekâhaneotse: I am tired

Nétónêšetano: what are you thinking?

Névááhe tséhoó'henonêstse: who is singing?

Étónêstôheaénáma: how old is she?

Tsémomé'šêhahtase: Clydesdale horse


	3. Back In South Dakota

**Back In South Dakota:**

**Uzumati Wheeler:**

He was waiting for his daughter to get home so that he could ask her how her day had gone, but she was already an hour late. He was worried, she normally stopped along the trails of the park to take pictures and study the plant and animal life. She wouldn't be able to call because there was very little cell service out on the old trails and that's normally the route she took back from the library. She always took all of her belongings with her just in case she ran into trouble so he didn't have to be worried about her.

Except that this wasn't a normal day. Nahimana had called and said that they were supposed to be going riding at 3:00 and it was now 4:00. He had called Matoskah and told him to let Nahimana know that Tierney wasn't going to be riding today. He hadn't told him why, just that he was going to go check out the old trails and that he would call him when he got within cell service again.

He had every right to be worried. Not only was Tierney supposed to go riding with Nahimana today, but there was also a storm warning in effect due to the recent thunder and lightning storms in the surrounding towns. The Badlands was a bad place to get stuck in during a thunder and lightening storm especially since there was no place to take cover. He took with him his flack jacket, a radio just in case he needed to get in touch with Matoskah, a blanket just in case Tierney was soaking wet, and headed out on his horse, Leo, to look for Tierney.

He hit the main trails first then headed for the old trails, which he knew his daughter had most likely taken. The first three trails he had come up empty handed and his daughter was nowhere to be found on any. Then he started down the fourth trail where he made a horrid discovery.

**Finding Tierney:**

Lobo stood grazing next to his daughter, who was lay unmoving on the ground, her head had a deep laceration on it from hitting a rock. He was off Leo within a matter of moments and next to her side. She had a faint pulse and shallow breathing. He took her gear off of her and hooked it to Lobo's saddle before wrapping her in the blanket. He set her on his horse and then pulled himself up, holding onto his daughter with all he had.

By the time he had Lobo's reins in his hand and turned the horses back to the house, it was pouring. He had to get Tierney back to the house before anything else happened. He kicked Leo into a gallop, making sure none of his daughters stuff fell off Lobo and kept ahold of both the lead rope and Tierney, knowing that she was in bad condition. With everything he had, he kept himself from crying and focused all his energy on getting her to the cabin and Matoskah.

**Matoskah's Cabin:**

Matoskah was watching TV with his daughter when the pounding of someone at the door came. Tiva, his wife, got up and answered the door. The horses were tied to the rail and Uzumati was standing outside the door with Tierney in his arms. He walked in and Nahimana stood up, looking at her father. Matoskah told her to go get Tierney's stuff off Lobo and put the horses in the barn, then turned to his wife.

He instructed her to put water on the stove and then told Uzumati to follow him. Uzumati followed Matoskah into the guest room and laid his daughter on the bed, moving the blanket from her face. Matoskah pulled the blanket from her body to look for more wounds but could find none. By that time Nahimana was in the room with her friends' gear and his wife had a pot of boiling water on the table in the room. Matoskah instructed everyone to leave the room while he worked.

Uzumati had to be pulled from the room by Tiva and Nahimana so that his partner, who was like an uncle to Tierney, worked on his daughter, trying to figure out what had happened. Matoskah was a medicine man and Uzumati trusted both his daughter's life and his own in the hands of Matoskah. Nothing this bad had ever happened and he was worried. Nahimana informed him that the horses were unsaddled and in there own separate stalls in the barn. Now all they had to do was wait to find out what Matoskah had to say about what was going on. This was going to be a long night.

**Matoskah's Cabin: The Next Day:**

Matoskah walked out of the room the next morning, looking at his wife, oldest daughter and Uzumati. The look on his face told them that she was going to live, but that he didn't know if she would wake up any time soon. He explained that because she was left out for so long without any medical attention, that her mind may have lapsed into a state of leisure. That her mind may have sucked her into an alternative reality, making her live out something she would never have lived out.

He informed the small group that as he had been working on her, he had noticed a few items of the bags that seemed to have been used and discarded of, like Tierney had been using them on a different plane of existence. He told them that it was common in head injuries, to go to a place where the mind had to pass an obstacle*, but that nothing like this had ever happened. He figured that she was on a different plane, probably having something to do with her heritage and informed them that she might be in a spiritual dream, living out a life she never thought she would live*.

**[*AN-both stars signal that I do not know if this is true. I don't mean to say Spiritual Dream but at the moment, my mind is going blank on what Tierney is really on. And I'm only doing these chapters in the Third person so that you know that Tierney is not experiencing what is happening outside in the real world, instead of what's really going on in her head. I want to keep her family and friends in this story as much as possible.]**


End file.
